YOU remember tackling don’t you? It’s something that has fallen out of fashion in the game since the 1970s. Tackling is a bit like playboy footballers who enjoy a smoke, it’s not very PC to condone it in the year 2010 – especially when the tackle in question is a lunge with the player’s feet off the floor.

Michel Platini would probably ban it if he ever got the chance but both David Moyes and Mick McCarthy are cut from quite a different cloth to the UEFA president.

Wolves boss McCarthy never shirked a challenge in his playing days while as a lower division centre-half for most of his own career, Moyes knows all about the more physical aspects of the game.

Most observers at Goodison Park on Saturday felt that the flying lunge that Adlene Guedioura inflicted on John Heitinga in the build-up to Wolves’ equaliser was a foul but crucially there were no complaints from either manager or the referee.

Moyes was more concerned with his side’s inability to make their earlier dominance count and Louis Saha losing possession cheaply, ensuring that Heitinga was forced to go into the challenge in the first place.

McCarthy admitted that Guedioura had ‘nailed’ Heitinga but still said he thought it was an excellent tackle.

Match official Lee Mason...well he had already given a free-kick instead of a penalty when stood at point blank range as Christophe Berra brought down Mikel Arteta inside the area so who knows what he might have been thinking?

Moyes was right though. It shouldn’t have come down to this. The game should not have been riding on a single 50-50 in the centre of the field.

By the time Wolves did grab their unlikely equaliser, Everton should have been out of sight and riding off into the sunset.

Lying prostrate on the Goodison turf as the visitors cantered upfield to equalise, the move proved a low point in Heitinga’s return to the starting line-up following his World Cup exploits with the Netherlands in South Africa.

It could have been all so different for Heitinga though and if fate had been kinder, he could well have been the Blues’ hero.

Before the game, he commented in the match programme: “It’s been a long time since I (previously) went an entire season without scoring and I can’t wait to score my first goal for Everton.”

In the first half, a 25-yard scorcher by Heitinga was spectacularly tipped over the bar by Wolves keeper Marcus Hahnemann while soon after the break he was stood unmarked in a central position in front of goal only for Jermaine Beckford to keep the blinkers of a striker on and fail to pass to him in a better goalscoring position.

A lack of a cutting edge in the final third has cost the Blues dearly in their two Premier League matches to date and on his own first start of the campaign, Beckford showed that he still has a big step up to make if he is to transfer his prolific marksmanship at League One level into the top flight.

The ex-Leeds frontman looked razor sharp at times in pre-season, showing a varied portfolio of finishing techniques with his goals coming via a cool one-on-one, a thunderous volley and a classic centre-forward’s header.

However, on this occasion he often seemed to lose his footing at the crucial moment and while you might get away with sticking in one chance in five in the third tier, you’ve got to be much more clinical when playing against the big boys.

Everton too must learn as a unit to start dispatching stubborn but limited opponents such as Wolves who have now held Moyes’ men to a draw three times in the past 10 months, including twice at Goodison.

Yes, the best two sides in the land, Chelsea and Manchester United, were both felled at ‘The Grand Old Lady’ last season but the likes of Stoke, Birmingham and West Ham all escaped with a point.

If the Blues are to improve on their eighth place finish in 2009/10 then these kind of encounters are going to have to be put to bed early because they almost sleepwalked to defeat in a game that had earlier looked like a routine three points.